Long Lifetime, Improved Performance Ceramic Aircraft Brakes

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the need for lighter weight brake materials that will allow for longer lifetimes with improved performance.Certain ceramic materials have demonstrated the potential to meet these objectives if their mechanical properties could be improved.It is proposed that this be achieved by the fabrication and characterization of three types of higher toughness ceramic composites that offer improved thermal and wear properties.Both hot pressing and spark plasma sintering will be investigated for consolidation of the materials.All of these materials have been previously demonstrated to have higher toughness than the monolithic ceramic, so minimal materials development is required other than ultimate scale up to produce larger components.It is anticipated that a complete data base (consisting of mechanical, thermal, and tribological properties) will be generated for each type of material that will allow for an assessment of each system for a variety of brake applications, both industrial and military.